Variables
by Raloire
Summary: A series of drabbles exploring the infinite potential for pairings and of the Impossible Cities. Currently only featuring Bioshock 1. Latest Drabble - Memory
1. Tending to Wounds

**Tending to Wounds**

It's one of those rare quiet moments where Jack gets to tend to his wounds, grimacing at his latest burns and one particularly nasty gash on his forearm. His heart still aches from Code Yellow and his plasmids keep changing back and forth so much it's giving him a headache.

Before he reached Hephaestus these moments were so serene and sacred to him. Jack could imagine the sunlight back on his face and the concerned voice of his doting mother telling him not to get into so much trouble while she gives him an ice pack to press against his face, almost imagine the farm and the family dog running around excitedly once he finally reached the surface again. He could almost imagine introduction Atlas to his family cause hell knew what that man would have to return to on the surface now, _oh that poor man stuck down in this underwater hellhole without his family for so, so long. _

Now these moments of quiet are appreciated but they leave a bitter taste in his throat. His whole life is just one big joke; there is no farm to return to, no family or dog and no such thing as a trustworthy soul in Rapture.


	2. Food

**Food**

After hours, (maybe days? Who knows Jack lost count of time a while back, the splicing has stopped him from sleeping and there is no sun and no trust worthy clocks to tell him whether the plane crash was today or last month), of eating nothing but stale chips and half eaten cream cakes found on dead splicers and in mouldy cupboards, he's decided that he misses food the most.

When he gets back home he's going to cook up a goddamn feast and while he's not nearly a good cook as his mother's it's going to be the best meal of his life.


	3. Candy

**Candy**

Jack isn't exactly the best father figure for the little ones, which becomes fairly obvious when they start squabbling over who the candy actually belonged too but compared to the one's he had down in Rapture she'd say they were doing just fine.


	4. Stars

**Stars**

Susie longs for the stars. Rising out of Rapture just isn't enough when she sees the night sky for the first time, having her feet on the ground is simply unacceptable to her when she watches the first moon landing intently next to her father.

She reads and reads everything she can get her hands on about space, learns the constellations with her sister who rambles on and on about the stories behind some of them and finds a closer kinship with Mama Tenebaum with their love for science, even if they're focused on two entirely different subjects. Mama says she's smart, though of course she would be she's from Rapture after all, Susie never doubted her own intelligence on the matter.

Susie longs for the stars and one day she's going to rise.


	5. Starvation

**Starvation**

The Vita-Chambers can only do so much, and he's searched and searched but everything, _everything, _seems to be gone or rotten beyond belief. He's starving and god this isn't how he thought he'd die, after everything Jack Ryan was going to starve to death at the bottom of the sea.

Or not, seeing as death abandoned him as soon as he left topside, hell he survived that plane crash didn't he? Maybe dying was never a possibility.

It's almost a comforting thought, but he's dizzy from hunger and in no state to kill Fontaine or defend himself from splicers so what good does that do.


	6. Horror

**Horror**

It'd already begun to seep into his bones with every determined step towards Ryan's office but now the feeling was suffocating him, choking him with every swing of the golf club.

The horror coiled tightly around his lungs and twisted in his gut with every laboured breath as his free will was ripped away from him, no that wasn't quite right and the world seemed to simultaneously slow down and spin faster as Jack took the genetic key off of the fresh corpse; as he was shown that he never had free will in the first place.


	7. Murder

**Murder**

Not five minutes upon walking out of the Bathysphere Jack murders a man.

It's self-defence of course, he didn't have a choice but he doesn't feel guilty for having beaten a man to death with a wrench and he doesn't feel much of anything but a wild fear pushing him forward and through this bizarre city.

Still he stands there next to the corpse for a brief few, silent moments. He only wanted to visit his cousins and now there's blood on his shoes and on his jumper but the man barely looked human even before his face was crushed inwards, it'd already been distorted with monstrous features.

Jack doesn't regret killing the man but at the same time he feels sin wash over him with the disgusting realisation that he's now a murderer. He doesn't know how he'll ever look his parents in the eyes again, if, no, when he gets back to the surface.

* * *

By the time Steinman's corpse drops gracelessly to the floor he doesn't feel like a murderer at all.


	8. Mythological Figures

**Mythological Figures**

Adelaide is fascinated by mythology; it reminds her of Rapture she supposes.

She borrows books from the library and copies her favourites down into notebooks, colouring the corner of the pages in to label them all though she's lost the purple pencil (Yvonne is furious about this, as it was her favourite) and so Roman mythology is currently on hold for now.

Some days she makes comparisons, Hercules reminds her of her father a little bit, though she'll never tell him that or she'll have to bring up Atlas into the conversation and that _tiny _little detail about Atlas betraying the hero. She doesn't want to hurt him so she treads lightly around that particular myth while enthusiastically telling him about what she's learnt.


	9. Two Roads

**Two Roads**

Jack likes Atlas, it's pretty hard not to like a guy who's quite possibly the only sane living person willing to help him, his one and only ally down at the bottom of the sea, but that doesn't mean he's going to _murder _a child on his say so.

God the poor girl is terrified as it is and the mere thought of hurting her sickens him and stirs new doubts within him. What kind of man is Atlas if he'd be willing to kill a little girl? What kind of father would be okay with any child being hurt?

His doubts seem to disappear after he saves the girl and goes back on his way to Neptune's Bounty.

* * *

Atlas is right, he _has _to do this. It's not a morale choice, it's a practical one.

This walking corpse isn't a child and hasn't been one for quite some time, so it's not murder like Tenebaum insists it is. Jack _needs _ADAM, everyone in Rapture does so it's his life or theirs and if anything this is a mercy kill for children doomed by this impossible city.

He's not a monster for doing this, he is not.

As it turns out, extracting the ADAM isn't nearly as bad as he thought it was going to be and after the second or third time his initial doubts fade away like mist.

It's actually getting fun.


	10. Guns

**Guns**

"Drop your weapons."

Both guns have a clear shot of their target.

Staring down the blond at the end of his pistol, Jack's hands tremble oh so slightly. He hadn't expected to come face to face with Atlas, no, _no_, with Fontaine so early after undoing his mental conditioning, he'd stun him right there on the spot with his plasmids if he could but he'd used the last of his eve up against that Big Daddy lying crumpled and burned back down the hall and damn it Fontaine must have known that before coming here.

Jack's hands are trembling and he has a clear shot of the blond man's forehead.

Atlas just has a better one.

The young red head squirms and whimpers as the barrel of the gun is tapped against her forehead, "Drop your weapons" he presses it against the girl's cheek with an insidious smile, "would you kindly."

Scowling, his pistol drops to the floor and he gently removes his bag and places it down next to it, abandoning everythinghe has. Pushing it away to the right, keeping an eye on the conman leering down at him, Jack raised his hands cautiously, "Let her go." His voice sounds hoarse; he hasn't spoken in so long it almost sounds unfamiliar to him though he remembers briefly speaking with someone on his plane.

"So you do have a voice, who would've thought."


	11. Memory

**Memory**

He cannot remember the surface.

No matter how hard he tries, and he _tries _damn it, Jack's earliest memory is sitting on that plane smoking a cigarette and checking a photo of himself and his parents.

It's probably because of that plane crash but he can't remember the colour of his mother's hair, or whether he was short or taller than his father, he doesn't remember having a home or ever seeing plants like at the Acadia Gardens, was it a luxury on the surface too? He knows that he should recognise trees at least.

Whenever he focuses on his life topside and his family that same photograph flashes in his head almost like one of the ghosts he's seen and for now that's enough.


End file.
